Kiwi Harry McDonald twice stood on the podium at the latest round of GT4 Scandinavia Series held at the Scandinavian Raceway, Anderstorp, in Sweden over the weekend. The Christchurch teenager is competing in the Am category, along with co-driver Hans Holmlund, part of a two-car Toyota Gazoo Racing team from Sweden driving Toyota GR Supra GT4s.
“After four races (two rounds) in the Series, I’m starting to find my feet and build confidence,” commented McDonald. “It’s such a terrific car to drive and very strong car in the wet. The Toyota Gazoo team are very professional and fun to be with, providing me with great coaching at driver debriefs, and engineering the car to suit what I feel best with.”
For the round, drivers and teams have two qualifying sessions(2×15 minutes) followed by two races, each between 50 -60 minutes long, including a mandatory pit stop for driver change.
“Qualifying on Saturday was challenging with only getting an hour of practice at the new track on the Friday,” said McDonald. “Damp conditions added another dynamic in Q1 which saw us starting fourth on the grid for the first race.
“Then in the second qualifying session (for Race 2) wet conditions put us down the field in seventh. Not great qualifying result leaving us with some work to do.
“With a dry line beginning to appear, the team decided to start the first race on slicks, along with 95% of grid,” said McDonald. “However, that changed when it started to rain in the early stages of the race.
“Onto wets at the pit stop and a driver change, where I hopped into the car. That went really well as I felt really confident with the balance and set up and was able to set the pace of the field for the first 10mins of the second stint. We battled our way through some traffic making a couple of places, coming home for a great second in the Am class.”
The GT4 Scandinavia is a motor racing series for GT4 Grand Tourismo, based on a two-driver concept meaning that an amateur and a professional share a car and drive the same amount of time in both qualifiers and races, with two separate classes – Pro/Am and Am.
For the second race, I had a much better understanding of the track. Having moved up from starting in seventh, I was sitting in third at the pitstop, swapping out for my team mate (and team owner) Hans Holmlund who raced hard for the last stint of the one-hour race, gaining another spot bringing us home on the podium with another second place.”
McDonald will spend the next two weeks based in Avesta with the team manager, Tobias Johansson, and will undertake a couple of days of testing before the last round of the season at Gellerasen Raceway.
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